Pittston Twp. woman arrested for allegedly stealing from aunt

A Pittston Township woman accused of stealing thousands of dollars from her aunt not only claims she isn’t a thief, but said she is owed money.

Donna Deleo, 54, of 17 Rock St., was arrested Wednesday on two felony counts of theft. Pittston Township police said Deleo stole a total of $20,257 from her aunt, Loretta Musto, who her niece had power of attorney over, because she felt she was “owed money for the services she provided to Loretta (Musto).” Deleo estimated she was entitled to more than $45,000 in compensation for her aunt’s expenses.

“I never exploited her,” Deleo said. “...I was paying her bills on her house in Pittston while she was with me.”

Carol Pace, who is another of Musto’s nieces, discovered some of her aunt’s money was missing after her death at 102-years-old in March 2013.

Deleo still used her aunt’s ATM card after Musto died and withdrew money from an estate account, police said. Pace found that Deleo also took several thousand dollars from her aunt’s burial account and transferred about $73,000 to another account after becoming power of attorney. Pace said she knew her aunt’s signature and a number of signatures on checks looked “suspicious.”

The burial money, Deleo said, was taken out of the wrong account by mistake. She said a bank employee at Wells Fargo was supposed to take money out of a savings account to pay Musto’s bill for her Pittston home she owned, but no longer occupied.

Deleo said she never transferred $73,000 either, noting that she didn’t have power of attorney when the money was moved. She also claimed there’s nothing suspicious about the signatures because she had power of attorney, which she said allowed her to sign for her aunt.

She said she hasn’t been able to confront Pace about the allegations brought against her because police told her she isn’t allowed to have contact with her and the other relatives involved.

She also claimed the police’s calculations are incorrect, and she doesn’t know where they got their figures.

“Our calculations are not wrong,” Officer Peter Hockenberry said.

He said Deleo didn’t have receipts to account for the missing money, which he said she admitted to taking after her aunt died because she wasn’t working and needed the cash. He said she even acknowledged taking the money was wrong.

“That’s all for her to dispute at the preliminary hearing,” he said, which is set for 1:30 p.m. July 16 before Magisterial District Judge Alexandra Kokura Kravitz.

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